Bullshit

Bullshit

Dealing with bullshit. I’m not talking about the random nonsense or lies people say trying to impress or deceive us. I’m talking about all the various situations we find ourselves with people that bring us no positive net value. It can be something as trivial as trying to meet up with a girl who continually flakes or it can be something important like a toxic work environment. Whatever it is, they all share a common thread. They all are a waste of our time and our energy. When the negatives outweigh the positives, or in some cases when there’s not many positives at all, they should be shed like a big fat dump.

Generally speaking, our tolerance for bullshit decreases as we age, particularly among men. When we are young, we are more likely to tolerate bullshit for a variety of reasons. We aren’t as confident, as courageous, and as assertive. We haven’t had as many life experiences and thus we are less self-assured. As we get older these characteristics generally shift to a more positive direction. We tend to care less about what other people think and more about ourselves. We value our time and energy more because we realize how very short life is and not to waste it on things that do nothing for us.

What dealing with bullshit all comes down to is how much we value ourselves. And I think this is something we unfortunately do not teach or stress to our kids and young people, as if doing so would breed them to become selfish and arrogant. Instead, for certain kids we teach them the exact opposite, e.g., white privilege and toxic masculinity. These are bullshit and do nothing but teach kids not to value themselves. They are control and power mechanisms that are utterly detrimental to personal growth.

My point of writing this is to encourage young people to stand up for yourselves; that you don’t have to take a back seat to anyone. And the quicker you can spot bullshit, the better your life will be.